Apple iPad 3, iPhone 5 Due for Fall Release: Report

A new report says Apple will launch the iPad 3 and iPhone 5 in the fall. Many news sources have already predicted an autumn debut for the iPhone 5.

The new Apple iPad 3 and iPhone 5 are both scheduled for a fall release, according to a new report by Taiwanese publication DigiTimes. With this latest iPad 3 rumor, DigiTimes is running counter to its own April report, which suggested it was unlikely that Apple would release an iPad 3 in 2011. That report cited unnamed upstream component makers.

A release of the iPad 3 in the same fall timeframe as the iPhone 5 has generally been dismissed by pundits and media. Certainly an iPad 3 launch would represent a radical speeding-up of Apple's tablet schedule, which so far has timed iPad releases roughly a year apart.

During a June 6 presentation at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, company executives claimed that more than 200 million iOS devices had been sold. Despite that sizable number, Apple is certainly feeling pressure to keep iOS evolving in order to keep ahead of the growing family of increasingly sophisticated Android devices; and that's on top of the competition it faces from the likes of Research In Motion's PlayBook tablet and Hewlett-Packard's just-released TouchPad, which runs webOS.